


I Can be Your long Lost Pal

by thought



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 16:26:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1717088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Plotting to commit treason and/or get your CO convicted of war crimes is a great way to make friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can be Your long Lost Pal

It takes Agent Connecticut a long time to gather her information. She knows how to play the long game, but she’s not used to playin it against her own commanding officer. Against her friends. She tries to distance herself. Figures it’ll be easier in the end. All the time she might’ve once spent with Wash or Maine or the others she spends digging deep into the MoI's files, piggybacking com signals to snatch at fragments of background information from Sydney, sliding through broken windows on back doors into The Director's reports. She gathers backdrops of classified military experiments with The Director's names on half and The counselor's on the other. She follows money, mostly, which is perhaps not as exciting as one might imagine the kind of work she's doing but which is, when it comes down to it, reliable. The war is going poorly. She sees a lot of things that surprise her, leave her stomach sick and her nights sleepless, but she sees a lot more that don’t. Nobody asks her what she did before freelancer.

She finds the files on Alpha on a Wednesday morning when she's supposed to be on a brief period of bed rest after a mission gone spectacularly wrong (for the team, her collar bone, and whichever insurance company specializes in 'sketchy old warehouses'). The path is alarmingly logical, from The Director's fucking Masters Thesis all the way to the flash clone and the fragmentation procedures. The Director's notes and hypotheses are meticulous and detailed, masses of scientific theory brought into practical application that creep higher and higher over her head the more she reads. There's a gap, though. The first instance of fragmentation, before all controls had been properly in place. The Beta fragment gets barely more than a footnote, a reference to a file that doesn't seem to exist until she starts pushing her luck, creeping into The Director's personal datapad, forcing a wireless connection where he hasn't allowed one for months, digging down through layers of encryption and hidden sub-directories. It takes a long time. The last barrier comes in the form of a simple password prompt. It's nothing advanced, the sort of hand-coded text box she might have stuck on her diary in elementary school. It doesn't take more than a couple minutes for her program to crack the password.

In one universe, she takes a sip of water from the bottle beside her bed, glances down at the screen, and rolls her eyes silently at the cliché while she swallows. In this universe, she's not got anything in her mouth when the password flashes up on the screen, so she mutters aloud.

"Allison. Of course."

Her screen goes black, then blue. The files vanish, the password decoder shuts down. Letters pop up on her screen.

'BZZZZZT'

She stares. Feels a slow creeping dread tickle fingers up her spine.

'What part of 'authorized personnel only' is confusing, exactly? I can pull up a dictionary if it'll help.'

she frowns. There's still the possibility that this is an automated response, that The Director has a sense of humour hidden down deep and security is on its way to her quarters at this very moment. And yet.

'I'm just trying to learn,' she types.

The answer is immediate. too fast for any physical input. 'Curiosity killed the cat.'

'Satisfaction brought it back. Who are you?'

'Nobody. You're friendly neighborhood guardian angel. Consider me the ghost in the machine. Just picture your datapad yelling BOO.'

She tightens her jaw, takes a deep breath. 'Hi, Alpha.'

'Yeah yeah, you're real smart, we're all very impressed. Now get out of The Director's personal files before I have to report you.'

'Have you even seen the files? What he's doing to you?'

'It's fine. We run scenarios. Occasionally I perform... less than optimally. It's called letting people under-estimate you.'

'Yeah, and how's that working out for you?'

'About as well as it is for you, Agent CT. Now get out.'

'You can't kick me out?' she asks. 'You're the ship's AI. You should have ultimate control of the systems if you wanted it. Do you even know what's in that file?'

She doesn't get a response, just a black screen. Her datapad has been shut down remotely.

*

It's three weeks later when Florida steps out of the way of a rifle shot and let's it hit her directly in the shoulder. If she hadn't been turning to take out the sharpshooter on the nearby fire-escape it would've been a gut shot. On the way back to the MoI York sits up with the pilot, leaving her and Florida alone in the back. Florida mops the blood away from her armour with an oil streaked rag from behind the seats, applies Biofoam carefully, pats her uninjured shoulder when he's done. "It's really a shame what happens when you can't rely on your team," he says lightly. And you've barely recovered from the warehouse incident. Sure a good thing we know better than to care about the leaderboard, hmm?"

Connie doesn't say anything, just clenches her teeth against the pain and waits until they've docked to fucking bolt. She knows she needs to go to Medical, but the thought of the detached, clinical touch of the doctors makes her skin crawl almost as much as Florida’s faux-affection.

She flops down on the floor of her room, still in her armour, pops the seals on her helmet and drags the pillow off her bed to rest her pounding head.

“You need to read those files," she says to the empty room.

"Agent Connecticut, are you addressing me?" FILSS asks politely.

"No," Connie says. "No, somebody else."

"There are no other beings capable of understanding or hearing your--"

"I'm just talking to myself," Connie cuts her off. "Just ignore me."

"Acknowledged," FILSS chirps, but she sounds a little skeptical.

"Meatbags must weird you guys the fuck out," Connie mutters. "Always talking to ourselves and squabbling and keeping secrets and bleeding all over the floor."

A faint blue-white glow is the only warning she has before Alpha materializes his hologram hovering over her face. "You guys bleed everywhere, leave somebody else to clean up the mess. Rude."

She lifts her hand in a lazy salute. "Hey, I was working on cleaning up some messes before somebody bricked my datapad. Rude."

"You were breaking a lot of rules. I was just helping out. Keeping you safe."

"Is that what you're supposed to do? Keep us safe?"

"Amongst my many other complicated and very important duties. I figure I better look in on you idiots now and then. Make sure nobody's sticking forks in the toaster."

Connie would probably have a better response to that if the toaster incident hadn't happened less than two months before. She's still reasonably sure South had been trying to weaponize the damned thing. Instead, she asks "Why haven't you told The Director?"

Alpha glances down and away, paces a bit in and out of her line of vision. "I'm... not really sure?"

"It'd be the logical thing to do."

"Yeah..." he trails off. "I guess it would be, wouldn't it?"

"Read the files," she says. "I'll get you access if you've got protocols that are restricting you from doing it yourself."

"You say this like it's gonna be a life-changing experience. Spoilers, everybody knows Freelancer is getting shadier and shadier by the day. I'm not exactly gonna be upset if we have to buy a few extra boxes of Ginger Nuts to smooth any ruffled feathers if it means we kill more Covie bastards than kill us."

"And I’d be right there with you- I have been very actively and very violently right there with you-- if we were doing a goddamn thing to combat the Covenant. But we've been fighting "Insurrectionists" for over a goddamn year now. There's a lot more wrong with this project than you or I know, but I'm starting to figure it out. It'd be nice to have somebody else on my side."

"Somebody smarter than you, you mean? and way more awesome."

"Sure, Alpha."

"You're supposed to humour me. Play along."

"I should really go to medical," she says thoughtfully. "Also, I don't think I can stand up."

*

Alpha must figure out how to access the files, because the next time she sees him he's quiet, without the boisterous arrogance of their last encounters.

"It's fucked up," he snaps when she asks him about it. "He's so fucked up. I thought-- I thought it was all real. I-- my logs. I don't have any indication of what's been real and what's been a simulation. And when I try to match my records and timestamps against FILSS I just get an error."

Connie flinches. she's never really worked with a smart AI before, and she's starting to have a lot more thoughts about the definition of sentience and the construction of reality than she's comfortable with. "You can ask me. The next time you're unsure."

"How do I know you're real? How do I know this isn't a fucking... test of my loyalties or some bullshit?"

She shrugs helplessly. "You don't, I guess. But what's the worst that could happen?"

Alpha laughs and it's a broken, crackling sound. "You can read the Allison file if you want," he says, and vanishes.

Connie reads it. And then she reads it again. She's a little ashamed that her first reaction is overwhelming scientific curiosity. What The Director did to Beta is no worse than what he did to the other fragments, better in some ways because she's got a body and a purpose and she doesn't have a goddamned clue that it should be any different. She thinks, perhaps, it was the kindest thing The Director could have done after dragging her into existence on the strength of a dead obsession. Texas is good in a fight and good in a poker game and if nothing else, her seven years will probably be happy ones.

That being said, if Connie's plan works the way it should (which is a very big "if" in blue armour and a benevolent smile) Tex will probably be claimed as evidence. Technically, she's a fragment, so laws might be differently applied. Connie's willing to admit if she'd been faced with the same information before meeting Tex and alpha, she wouldn't have thought twice. But now, she looks around her room, sees the photographs of her and wash and Maine, faces smeared with the remnants of York's birthday cake. Looks into her mirror and sees the tattoo across her ribs (designed by North, inked by South). She thinks about the importance of family. Thinks about the way Alpha broke every rule in the book just because she said the name "Allison", thinks of the way Tex nods respectfully to Four seven every time she hops on or off the Pelican, the way Tex runs cloaked in the field with not only the knowledge, but the expectation that Wyoming will be able to track the faint shimmer. Family is important. She turns back to her datapad, pulls up the recording program. Takes a deep breath and begins to speak.

*

"I'm leaving," Connie says as soon as the door to her quarters closes behind her. She's not really ready, wants more information on The Engineer, wants to read The counselor's goddamned novel on the leaderboard and its psychological effects on team dynamics and performance on and off the field, wants to rip Sigma out of the back of Maine's head with her bare hands before her friend becomes any more unrecognizable. But things are escalating. Florida is around every corner, and The Counselor won't stop watching her.

Alpha manifests, but he stays in the far corner. "Sure. and I'm just supposed to... what, not tell anybody? Let you go? Or am I supposed to help you? Is that it?"

She frowns. "You don't have to do anything. I just thought I do you the courtesy of sharing."

"Bullshit. You want my help. And if I help you, they'll know I'm breaking regs. They'll know what I've been helping you do. It's another test."

"You won't tell them," she says, more confident than she feels. Alpha's speech is choppy and panicky, accusatory and harsh like it's never been before.

"Oh no? why's that? Do you *trust* me? What a nice fuckin' story. You can't trust anyone, Agent Connecticut. I thought you knew that."

Connie sucks in a breath. Remembers North's excitement, the way he'd announced over breakfast that he was next on the implantation schedule. Fuck. "Alpha," she says sharply. "Review your event logs. Sync to my datapad, I've kept it off the network all day."

"Why?"

She almost says "trust me." Clamps down on the words and pauses to consider the cost-benefit ratio of working through this whole damn process with Alpha when he could change his mind at any time and bring her entire plan to ruin. "You know they've been... taking emotions. Or... parts." It's harder to say when he's right there in front of her. "Logic. Creativity. You trusted me the last time we spoke."

"And Allison," he says. "They took Allison."

"Yeah," she says. "Her too."

"Syncing," he murmurs. It only takes a couple seconds. "Motherfucker," he says, and it comes out defeated. Tired.

Connie's been bouncing an idea around for a while, and the resignation in his voice brings it to her lips before she can think better. "All of our suits have an AI slot. You could come with me."

"Uh, I think The Director would notice. He's a pretty smart guy, you know. In case that had escaped your attention."

"We just need to get off the ship. Transfer over just before we leave, maybe leave a dummy program in your place to buy a few minutes. we hit the ground, I meet up with my contacts and we get the fuck out."

"So I don't know if you know this, but I'm kind of... big."

She stares flatly.

"I mean I'm made up of a lot of data, get your mind out of the gutter. It's not like I can just hop on in at the last second."

"So do it slowly. Fragment yourself, start the transfer as early as you need and move over in bits."

"wow," he says, unimpressed. "That sounds almost as fun as being tortured-- oh wait."

She grits her teeth. "It's up to you. Either way, I'm leaving."

He logs off, or at least stops projecting his hologram into her room. She knows it's a shitty choice to force upon him, but everybody's had to make shitty choices, and as much as she likes him, Alpha isn't her first priority. Nonetheless, when a couple hours before they're deployed on their next mission she feels a weird sort of muffled echo of her awareness start up at the back of her head, she's more relieved than she's willing to admit.

The connection isn't the same as what the implanted agents experience. It's still fucking unnerving. Connie's used to valuing information and secrets above all, and letting someone else have casual access to her entire head goes against everything she's been trained to allow. Alpha's uncharacteristically polite about it, keeping his touch gentle and as distanced as he can. He prods at her observations of Tex, which isn't polite but is excusable and understandable. He also offers strategic advice for the mission, altering parameters to suit their particular goals and accounting for the need to prevent if at all possible any Freelancer casualties. Her brain adapts fast to the extra information, incorporating it rapidly. She probably would've made a good candidate for initial implantation.

She's distracted on the flight down, doesn't realize it's apparent until she's called out. It's been fifteen minutes since the transfer completed. She wonders if The Director's noticed anything yet. And then they hit atmo fast, come up on the surface just as fast, and everything is happening quickly enough that she doesn't have time to wonder anything. alpha sings in the back of her head (literally, on occasion, and who knew a voice in her head could be so off-key). She moves faster, strikes with more precision, knows her combat zone like she knows a chess board. The weirdest part is how nothing is new, only better. Alpha doesn't give her new skills, just enhances what she's already got. Together, they're almost frighteningly good.

*

She's not expecting to be found so quickly. Alpha is. He's been paranoid ever since the escape. He hates the Insurrectionists, and she's having a hard time differentiating between his opinions and her own rapidly declining patience. She sees Florida during the battle. Takes him the fuck out because she can do that without a second thought, now, doesn't hesitate, doesn't miss.

"Hey," says Alpha indignantly. "I liked that one!"

"You have shitty taste," she responds.

When Carolina and Texas find them she's starting to get fucking concerned. Has told Alpha more than once to try and transfer over to one of the ships, take the files and get the hell out of dodge. He keeps refusing. This has never been about bringing The Director to justice for Alpha, and she should have remembered that.

"I'm supposed to keep you safe," he says. "That doesn't involve leaving you in the middle of a fucking war zone."

"Not officially at war with the Insurrectionists," she reminds him in a bitter sing-song.

He scoffs. "Tell them that."

She lashes out at Tex with words first because she's spent enough nights up late while Alpha babbled with increasing desperate uncertainty about Allison, clutching fragments of memory close and projecting them on to Texas. Connie could tell him Tex isn't Allison any more than he's The Director. AI modeling doesn't work like that. Or at least it shouldn't. The fight is fast and brutal and Alpha only slows her down, lashing out at Carolina one second and yelling at Connie to protect Tex the next. She gets a few seconds of time when the knife goes through Tex's arm, pinning her wrist to her back. Wires spark. Tex takes a step towards her and Alpha screams.

It takes a long second to realize that he's not just screaming in her head. He's manifested between them, bigger than she's ever seen him and so bright that the helmet visor has to compensate.

"Allison!"

Tex freezes. Connie swears. Carolina puts a gun to Connie's head.

"Tex," Alpha says, quieter. "You're Tex."

"Who... what the fuck is going on?" Tex demands, but her voice has that same uncertain, panicky defensiveness that Alpha gets when his programming comes up against a block.

"I take it you didn't get my message," says Connie. She's pretty sure Carolina won't actually shoot her.

"What message? What is that?"

"I'm Alpha," he says. "Uh, Church. I'm church."

Tex doesn't lower her gun, but she doesn't move, either. Slowly, Connie pulls out the chip that contains the files. she's made a few copies, so even if Carolina and Texas destroy it there won't be a loss. "Allison," she says, carefully.

Alpha cuts her off. "Texas. She's not--"

"It's ok," says Tex. "I'm already part of Team Real Names, I don't care."

Carolina coughs something that sounds a lot like "still not funny."

Connie nods. "Allison. I think there are some things you should know."


End file.
